I FINALLY get to add a post to this thread, and it has felt like forever waiting. This was my Axe FX II "playing out" rig originally, but I haven't been playing out for the best part of 2 years, and back then the AxeFX III was waiting for a foot controller, so I stuck with the Axe FX II XL and MFC-101 for summer 2019 gigs. Was left with a little music room to play in at home once the "locking down" started, so bought a pair of Adam A5X monitors and amused myself with the AFX III and a bit of home recording. Soon discovered the room was not a great sounding one, so the next great hold up was designing a new "band sized" rehearsal room, which then turned into a 4 room home studio build (before anyone gets too excited, live room, control room, air-lock, and big cupboard for HVAC and excess music gear, not 4 rooms that get played in). Lots of dust and upheaval later, I was able to dig the "playing out" rig back from under the dust sheets and move it into the new live room this week.
So, ta dah... Not the most exciting or mind blowing rig in the world ever, but it's mine, it's all paid for, and I have a pretty good idea how to work it. There's an EV-1 for it somewhere that I'll also be using, but didn't need for dialling in the Matrix and Fearless F115. Surprised how little there was to do between 5" studio monitors and a 15" FRFR setup, just moving high pass filters on cab blocks and trimming amp tone controls, and drive pedal tone, volume and drive so far. Has to be said the 15" setup has just a
teeny bit more low end
, and moves a fair bit more air. Makes the 100 watt Marshall and Fender Twin models come across as a fair bit more convincing at volume, but without being ear-splitting.
Only schoolboy error with the Fractal setup was forgetting that I had been running the AFX III synced to a Scarlett 6i6 word-clock through S/PDIF in the old music room. Scratched my head when all I got out of the cab was digital "pfffff", but less than a few minutes later inspected the setup pages and remembered that it needed flicking back to the internal clock. Only schoolboy error with the studio build was running the HVAC power supply over the live room ceiling - hadn't figured how much EMI the inverter would kick back down the power cable to be picked up by my guitars. Will be routing an armoured cable round the outside of the building next weekend so the studio and its mains rings are clear of all that noise.
Kind of glad to have had time to spend with Cygnus before "going large", instantly immense sounding setup!
Liam
